


Ash and Blades and Bloody Teeth

by etheratisha



Series: Black Blood [2]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Gen, Vampires, mentions of blood drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 03:34:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15654939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etheratisha/pseuds/etheratisha
Summary: The Outsider’s black blood runs through Daud’s veins, a gift, a curse, that for most of the time, he regrets accepting. What the Outsider offers, is a choice no man knows the consequences of.





	Ash and Blades and Bloody Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> Continuing the vampire AU I started with Black Eyes and Black Blood. This is a look into Daud in this AU, as well as the ending of the Brigmore Witches DLC.

The Outsider’s black blood runs through Daud’s veins, a gift, a  _ curse _ , that for most of the time, he regrets accepting. What the Outsider offers, is a choice no man knows the consequences of. When the black-eyed bastard first appeared to Daud, he was nothing but a young man trying to make it on the streets of Serkonos, with too much spirit and too little strength. The Outsider offered him strength and power, all the tools he’d need to become something more than the weak scorned son of a witch. It was an offer too tempting to resist. The Outsider’s blood, his favor, his  _ mark _ , were gifts that Daud reveled in. He sought out runes and bone charms with fervor, and he sought out shrines with reverence. The Outsider watched him with black eyes and bloody teeth. Daud lived for those stolen moments at the God’s shrines, the deity’s lips wrapped around his wrist as he drank Daud’s blood and whispered secrets and insights into his ear. 

But then things changed. Daud, heady on blood and power, began to care less about who he killed and more about how much money he could make from doing it. His fervor for runes and bone charms remained, but his reverence for the shrines began to fade. He began to wonder why the Outsider drank of his blood but didn’t offer his own in return. The Outsider, in turn, began to drink less of his blood, whisper fewer insights in his ear. With black eyes and a cutting tongue, he spoke of the world in a more cynical, bloody way. No longer did the Outsider’s eyes look upon him with any hint of tenderness, now they gazed upon him with the hint of disdain. Until one day, Daud took the rune from the Outsider’s shrine and the god did not appear. He did not appear at any of the following shrines Daud hunted down in frustration.

Eventually, Daud moved on. He began to gain a reputation and more, a following. Soon he began assembling his own band of mercenaries, assassins. And just as the Outsider’s blood flowed through Daud’s veins, so too did Daud’s blood soon begin to flow through his Whalers. Those Daud turned, were weaker than himself, they had only some of his powers, Transverse, Pull, Sleep. It was discovered that they had more weaknesses too. Where Daud’s Mark protected him from the harshness of the sun, his Whalers burned, the brightness too much for their sensitive eyes and their skin smoked and cooked in the light. It was the industrial whaling outfits that gave them their name, but also their protection. The thick leather kept their skin safe from the burning rays of the sun, the lenses tinted to keep their eyes safe from the glaring brightness. In Dunwall’s flooded district, they made their home. In the crumbling ruins of Rudshore, they dug out space in the lower levels of the building, uncaring for the cold or the water that seeped in. What was cold to those who felt only borrowed warmth? What was water to those who had no need to breathe? 

Daud made his office on the top floor of the building, far away from the rest of his group, in a room with crumbling walls. He could hear the whole of the district from there if he focused. A sentry always on duty, he supposed. It was where he was now, staring out a window that had long been missing its pane and smoking a cigarette, despite the lack of effect substances had on him, smoking was a habit even undeath couldn’t break. The chill in the air grew sharper, the air itself thicker, colors bleeding out to grey.

“You knew.” Daud blew a puff of smoke out into the evening air with the words. Brigmore Manor was an hour into the past now and Daud could still see the ash when he closed his eyes.

“You are not the first of my Marked to share my gifts, nor will you be the last.” the Outsider stood next to him, the god’s arms clasped behind his back as he looked at Daud with those black depthless eyes. 

“You marked Attano.” Daud stared out over the city, his eyes drawn towards Dunwall Tower. 

“I don’t know what he’ll do. He hasn’t killed yet, but you’re a different story, aren’t you, Daud?” the Outsider’s gaze is piercing and Daud finds he can’t meet it, instead continuing to stare out the window.  “You killed the Empress, you killed Jessamine.” the Outsider shifts, folding his arms in front of his chest. “Will you run now, Daud? Take what you can and flee, your Whalers behind you? Or will stay here and face the man whose world you shattered at the end of a blade?”

Daud thinks of Billie, on a ship somewhere to a different future, of Thomas, loyal and steadfast, of Rulfio, and Rinaldo, and all the others. And then he thinks of Delilah, of his teeth in her throat, her sword in his chest, her struggles as he drained her blood and tore off her head with blade and teeth, of her body crumbling to ash there on the floating stones of the Void. The first kill he’d made since the Empress, the one he vowed would be his last. When he stepped back out of the painting, he’d expected to have to fight his way through Deliah’s coven, perhaps he even thought he would die, but he was greeted not with the snarling faces of angry witches, but with ash. Piles and piles of ash. Every one of Delilah’s coven as dead as her. And he knew then, as the horror swept over him, that just as their fate was tied to hers, so too were the fate of his Whalers tied to him. His mind flashed with Attano’s face, the look of pure agony he wore when Daud ran the Empress through with his blade, and again the mask he’d seen on wanted posters, the face of death itself. 

He put the cigarette out on the window and turned back towards his office. The Outsider disappeared in a burst of shadow and color bled back into the world as Daud drew on his bond with his Whalers. There was a ship run by a man who owed Daud a great deal and a lot of men to settle into its hold. 


End file.
